Gabriele Tarquini took his first win of the season and JAS Motorsport’s first-ever in the World Touring Car Championship, as Honda secured a dream 1-2-3 result.
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Tarquini’s victory is only Honda’s second in the WTCC, after James Thompson scored their first with N Technology at Imola in 2008. The experienced Italian beat team-mate Tiago Monteiro to the win, with Hungary’s Norbert Michelisz completing the podium in third.
“The first win is very important – I cannot let somebody else win,” said an emphatic Tarquini after the race. “They are younger than me – they can wait. [I achieved] the first victory because I wanted it very very strongly. This first win is very important for me, for Honda, for my past and maybe for the future.
“It was [about] managing the tyres, especially in the first two or three laps because I knew from the past that this track is very demanding on tyre wear, so I paid attention on the first three or four laps. As soon as my front tyre pressure was good I tried to push to have a little space.”
Tarquini held the lead off the rolling start and pulled away from Monteiro and Michelisz at the front while the Hungarian was put under pressure from Muller.
Behind, James Nash in the bamboo engineering Chevrolet Cruze held fifth until two laps from the end when the ROAL Motorsport BMW 320TC of Tom Coronel took the position at turn 8. Nash held on to take sixtha couple of seconds further back.
Completing the top ten was Marrakech race winner Michel Nyjkær in the NIKA Racing Chevrolet Cruze in seventh, Nash’s team-mate Alex MacDowall in eighth, Pepe Oriola in the Tuenti Racing Team SEAT León in ninth and Mehdi Bennani in the Proteam Racing BMW 320TC in tenth.
Nykjær’s race was not without incident, as the Dane made contact with RML’s Tom Chilton on the second lap of the race, forcing the Brit into retirement as his car became beeched in the gravel. It was Chilton’s second visit to the gravel of the day after his crash in morning warm-up.
After his post qualifying penalty, Rob Huff could only finish 17th while James Thompson in the LADA Granta finished 13th. Huff was one of several drivers to make trips through the gravel as he struggled with his car.
Also having excursions through the gravel were LADA’s Mikhail Kozlovskiy and René Münnich in the ALL-INKL.com Münnich Motorsport SEAT Leon.
Muller has seen his Championship advantage slashed to 21 points ahead of Tarquini while Nash has extended his Yokohama Independents’ Championship advantage with his win.